


Euphoria

by Mortem (Kittyreaper)



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Wizards, Canon-Typical Violence, Elemental Magic, Minor Character Death, Queerplatonic Relationships, Slavery, Slow Burn, Soul Bond, Telepathic Bond, Therapy, but can you really blame them, overuse of fire and ice imagery, tom and tord are walking disaster zones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29750670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittyreaper/pseuds/Mortem
Summary: He’s done well to blend in, as much as he can. A stranger would only know his true nature from the way his good eye reacts to light, the fact that he never sweats, the hint of knife-like quartz in his mouth. But Tom knows the second he draws near, the second that something clicks back into place.~ * ~Tom's past is dead -  buried six feet under. And he's okay with that. Then, the asshole in red waltzes back into his life with a mountain of regrets and starts reviving all those old feelings.[Elemental AU, feat. queerplatonic TomTord]
Relationships: Tom & Tord (Eddsworld), Tom/Tord (Eddsworld)
Kudos: 3





	Euphoria

**Author's Note:**

> Woooo 13k into this thing let's goooooo -
> 
> Make sure you've read the tags, and skip down to the end notes for chapter-specific content warnings. Stay safe and have fun. 💜

“I did it.”

There, behind, was a man: round face, dark eyes, pointed hat. His robes fluttered as he gripped at a dirty mess of hair. He repeated, softer, “I did it.”

Two eyes watched in silence.

He gasped, “Oh! Oh, you must feel mighty lost right now. Where are my manners?” Flattening his front, he fell into a bow before bouncing back up. His whole figure warmed with his smile.

“My name is Eadweard. Eadweard the True. I’m the wizard who created you. But, we can discuss that later. How are you feeling?” His brows pinched. “You can speak, correct?”

Two welled up at once, a heat to the right, a chill to the left. A deep breath of smoke and must. A voice came like the swing of a rusty blade.

“I… We… Fine?”

A flash of green, and Eadweard was flipping through a worn leather book. “That’s normal, right? An adjustment time? … I know I’d need one.”

The cavern was black, save for the crystals. The sea of lights sprouted from every surface, sprung from every jagged, mottled rock, the stars brought before them. Eyes of quartz gazed upon hands dark as night, rippled like ink. They were hard and cold, so the heat rushed to those extremities. Basalt came alight with molten veins. The chill rushed after, and the veins went dark. A little colder and there was frost on the fingertips.

“Ah, here we are.” The frost melted. When Eadweard next looked that way, it was with earnest optimism. “If it’s alright, I have a very important question to ask of you.

“Are you one, or two?”

If asked how they met, Red would say it was in the time before time, the space between spaces. He would describe a void like jelly sticking to souls, slowing sight. A voice - distorted - and a pair jolting into awareness. Opening their eyes to a new world.

“Oh Eadweard, it’s perfect. It matches all the furniture!”

Every aspect of Prince Matthew’s life had to, from the drapes, to the rugs, to the velvet upholstery and the splendor of his wardrobe. He even had his servants wear that same rich hue - the Prince’s purple.

“Of course, your Highness.” The man in green practically vibrated in his place between the Prince and the chaise lounge. “It’s been an honor, and a pleasure.”

His Highness chuckled, “Indubitably. But, tell me, is it aware of its purpose, of the rules it must follow? Does it even speak?”

Eadweard nodded. “Yes, it fully understands human speech. While it was quiet on the trail home, I’m sure it was just taking in the new sights and sounds. It’s only been alive for a few hours, after all.”

“Well, I hope it stays quiet. Who wants a raucous bodyguard?”

“I would imagine very few, your Highness.”

“Few indeed.” The Prince peered up, head cocked. “You there, elemental.”

Eyes of quartz stared down at him.

The Prince’s narrowed. “ … Awfully tall, aren’t you? Get on the floor, please. Hands and knees.”

Rippled feet with crystal claws shifted on the tread-smooth stone, but did not fall. Seconds later, a face of basalt twisted and strained. Quartz eyes were filled with light and a foreign heat. Every bit of their conjoined form screamed.

The floor was cold beneath them, so their core burned. His shadow was dark overhead, so they came alight, weak as their pulsing glow was.

“You see, I’m your owner now, and as your owner, I’m in charge of you. Do you know what that means? That means you must follow my commands. I even said please, just then! Honestly, how rude.” He huffed, hands planted on his hips. “Eadweard!”

The court sorcerer jolted. “Ah! Yes, your Highness?”

“The stuff, if you will.”

“The stuff?”

The Prince rolled his eyes. “The stuff! For the next part?”

“Ooh, the stuff! One moment.”

It started at the base of their neck, with a single translucent shackle. Chains grew, then it spread down their arms, to their wrists, tightening until the bonds were flush with dark stone. It hurt, the magic pressing on their form, but not as much as the spells - curses - wrapping around them, squeezing their core. Eadweard finished his incantation, and they locked together, hot and cold. Lukewarm.

That night, sat at the base of the bed, he observed. Mirrors decked the walls almost from floor to ceiling; the Prince had spent hours praising himself before retiring. His own reflected party. The elemental only needed one, so that was all he looked at: a full-length rectangle framed with gold and amethyst.

He was purple, though not quite amethyst. His horns were too dull in color, his chains too bright. His fangs were gnarled and uneven. His skin was a prematurely cooled magma plume. His figure was almost ceiling-height when standing. His limbs were thick, and his legs were disproportionate. His fingers were too long, and his jaw opened too wide. From his form to his core, he still hurt.

Elemental: a force of nature given form. A powerful creature serving powerful wizards, such as the Prince, created by less-powerful-but-more-knowledgeable wizards, such as Eadweard the True.

Paired elemental: two elementals, opposite in nature, acting as one. A creature more powerful than any lone elemental, but lesser all the same.

One moment, his too-long fingers were curled at his side, his lips peeling apart. The next, the mirror was broken. He didn’t bleed.

Blue’s memory starts with water.

As black faded from the sky, orange bathed the room. The castle awoke from beyond a barrier of oak - footsteps, muffled voices, carts rolling down the hall. He stayed on the dawn-struck carpet, staring at the ceiling. Not even the door opening could shift his gaze, though his ear did twitch. The newcomer’s jitters were like a fly buzzing beside his head. It took several beats for them to shuffle towards the scattered mosaic. A blue beacon, fluid.

He glanced at the other elemental, the servant.

Hair tawny and soft. Skin of solid flesh. Garments silken, purple as they were. Not a drop of water on his person. He froze, and his irises floated atop off-white seas. Pupils were replaced with a distorted reflection of the sun.

It was only another minute before the stream spirit was toeing around the glass minefield, though the silence felt like a short eternity. He pulled a bubble from thin air, brought it to the ground; it sucked each shard from the rug. Then, taking the bubble in hand, he swiped the broken mirror with his free one. Their eyes didn’t leave each other for a second.

By this point, he was shaking harder than phantom electricity. He was nearly to the door, when that tired rumble reached him:

“How do you do that?”

He spun slowly. The Prince’s bodyguard was in the same place he’d been all morning, leaned against the bed, knees to his chest and arms dangling about them. Somewhere between the mirror and the door, his glare had softened.

“Do… do what?”

“You look human.”

“It’s standard among the staff. It makes you look friendlier.”

The knee closer to him lowered, the arm dropping with it. He swallowed. “B-but the guards still need to look scary!”

A squeak, and he was gone, leaving two in the yellowing room. He didn’t even have fangs.

A stirring from behind, followed by a groan - his Highness arose, the most graceful of sleeping beauties. Hair a ruddy ratsnest, entire face squeezed in the range of that one ray of light. He blinked the remnants of night from his eyes.

“Hello?” He grumbled. “Is anyone going to close that curtain? Jon?”

Another stretch of silence, and the Prince turned his bleary gaze to his guard. “Elemental, nod yes or no. Did another of your kind come in here earlier, perhaps named Jonathan?”

The breath drew in without thought, and heat swelled to meet it. Purple streaks warred with clear watery eyes. Ice surrounded his core like crystalline shards encompassing his fist.

The breath released. Lukewarm.

“No.” He shook his head, for good measure. “No one’s entered or left.”

The Prince hummed. One at a time, he removed his legs from the bed. “Well, that’s odd. Jon’s usually here first thing in the morning.” His eyes narrowed.

“Because of him, my beautiful face was shined on.”

“Good morning, your Highness. Apologies for my lateness -”

The mirror was replaced, and the Prince didn’t notice.

“As I was saying, your Highness -”

He stood near the window, just in the background, just close enough to reach the Prince if needed. From below, he soaked in the chill of the floor. From above, he soaked in the warmth of the sun. Each torch was a glowing rock in his periphery; each crack was a twitch of his hand.

“- and the trade routes are of great concern, what with -”

His heat was the hearth, the light within him. The fire he breathed and the lava he spit. Heat swelled often, bubbled when the Prince spoke, snapped at the designation of “it.”

“- Not to mention the kingdom to the west. The treaty plainly states -”

The nights were cold, and only getting colder as warmth and light leaked from the earth. Would it leak from him too? The image was clear: a corner, dark and still, surrounded by glass and ice - an empty kaleidoscope.

The torch across the hall cracked.

“- To give my honest opinion, those soldiers have very little business within your borders, sire -”

The Prince did this thing. He curled up in his sheets and his silks, closed his eyes, and rested. The elemental sat on the floor, leaned against the footboard, and waited. For someone to break in or for the Prince to wake up - he’d have preferred the former, but whichever came first. Perhaps he relaxed, but he never fully rested.

The Prince hummed. “Yes, that certainly is a predicament.”

Another crack. He grit his teeth against the next surge. Orange lit up his veins before he noticed. Crossing his arms, cold smothered heat as well as possible. Cold couldn’t smother the dampness forming on his skin.

Cold couldn’t smother the burning beneath it.

“What are you doing?”

A drop slid down a jutting of rock. Each pearlescent bead followed another, and was followed by a third, all inevitably pooling on the floor. The cave smelt of must, but even face-first on the cold earth, the smoke was more pungent. Two hands pressed down, as one form pulled itself up.

For hours, that water elemental bounced around in his head. His screams echoed like a leak in a cave. Ultimately insignificant. Just a soft, fluid little thing, lacking in any real bite. But so, so loud. He poured himself into the space between dusk and dawn, the lengthening stretch of night, sloshing and buzzing and turning to thousands of tiny knives in the freezing cold.

The Prince spoke, and heat simmered. He called him an “it,” and heat produced a single bubble. Claws dragged along the carpets; when scolded, no snarl escaped him. Sunlight was a balm, but only as long as he stayed within its reach. Torches were not an option. Tantalizing, but out of the question. The cold room that followed denied him even sunlight.

The time came that no subtle puffing into his hands could warm them, and no sunbathing could flush his skin. Day by day, the magma in his gut thickened. When no one was looking, he flashed his veins, just to know he could. With each try, they grew slower to glow. As the heat tired, the cold wakened: horns thicker, fangs longer, claws sharper. The spikes on the back of his head frosted, and his breath fogged the surrounding air. The ice stabbing him from the inside, out - it nearly burned. His claws’ drag was purposeful; his snarls displayed every fang. His chains rubbed against one another, stabbed into his ears, that pseudo-metallic _chink, chink, chink_.

The cold room meant nothing to someone already frozen.

Tomorrow. He was going to do it tomorrow. No matter the cold room, nor the foreign heat, nor the watery eyes. He was going to swallow that torch, then every other torch in his path, until the magma turned liquid and his veins glowed again.

“Brrr -” The Prince rubbed his shoulders. “How cold it is!”

A bolt of purple, and the oddly-shaped, non-reflective mirror on the far wall was home to a roaring fire. The instant the rise and fall of his Highness’s chest evened, he was padding across the room, shaking, gaze locked with the dancing colors. It crackled; he whimpered. As he neared, water dripped from his extremities. He submerged himself.

As the future sovereign, there was much that Prince Matthew could do, especially in regards to his own staff. He could shoot them with lightning. He could lock them in the dungeon. He could make their screams echo through the castle. He could spend every second of every day insulting, demeaning, and demoralizing them, for the rest of his natural life.

And yet, as the elemental found himself engulfed in the flames, and the crackles, and the heat sang into awareness, he pitied that prince. For, as much as Matthew could do, and as much as he could make his life a living hell, no one could take this away from him. No one could taint the euphoria of late night resurrections in the dead of Winter.

* * *

He looks different. It’s mainly the hair - longer, redder, styled into ‘horns’ that look soft and probably are. His hoodie’s that same shade of red; his grin is that same form of barely-concealed fervor. The right side of his face is splotched with bumpy, silvery scarring, his corresponding eye covered with a black patch. He’s done well to blend in, as much as he can. A stranger would only know his true nature from the way his good eye reacts to light, the fact that he never sweats, the hint of knife-like quartz in his mouth. But Tom knows the second he draws near, the second that something clicks back into place.

White hot rage. The cold silence that follows. Flames licking at his face. Ice bursting at his side -

“That’s enough!”

Green, and they’re flying in opposite directions before slamming against walls. As stone gives way to nail and ice gives way to hair, Tom’s scorched out eyes don’t leave him for a second.

“Hey, what’s going on? Why are you -?” Edd’s standing between them, arms raised and head flicking back-and-forth. He hasn’t lifted the spell, and Tom’s not sure he can blame him. If he weren’t being physically held back, he would deck that stupid guy right in his stupid face -

“Do you two know each other?”

Tom stops on one knee, hand frosted and fisted. His muscles ache; his teeth grit. The clouds he puffs out immediately dissolve into the room-temperature air.

Red laughs, really a short-lived cackle. He’s limp against the wall and still grinning. Distantly, something like lemon settles on their tongues. “Go ahead, Blue. Tell him all about how you left.”

“You threw a fireball at me!”

“And you threw an ice harpoon -”

“So, you guys are paired?”

“Unfortunately.” Two voices speak as one. They glare at each other.

Tom’s the next to break the silence: “Edd, why didn’t you tell me he was moving in?”

“I did,” he says, brows furrowed and shoulders raised in a near-shrug. “It was at breakfast, remember?”

His eyes narrow. He remembers something, through the haze of hangover that always bids him good morning, the burn and buzz that immediately follow. _“Hey Tom, just so you know -”_

_Cereal._

In the back of his mind, there’s a huff of amusement. He just barely keeps his elbow to himself. Touching will only make it worse.

“Well, I think it’s a great coincidence!”

They can help neither the simultaneous scrunching of their noses, nor the glares they exchange, at the twinkle in Edd’s eye. He deflates.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. Isn’t pairing supposed to be awful romantic, your other half and all that? Hell, you’re even mad at me in sync! And really, with how rare it is, who would've thought two of my best friends would have had such a close bond?” He slams his hand on the kitchen table; his SMEG HEAD mug rattles. He’s got that color to his face, that strength of jaw that both elementals know spells trouble.

“That settles it! Since you two know each other so well - and since the guest room’s a pool right now - you can share Tom’s room. Tord's old room? Whatever.”

As the fiery fuck opens and closes his mouth ( _bubbling broiling so stupid what the fuck -_ ) Tom rises from a creaky wooden chair. He takes a swig from his flask, before stating:

“I’m gonna sleep on the couch.”

“What, and leave the room all to myself?”

A clawed finger aims itself at Red, fangs bared. “Don’t touch my stuff.”

“Hey.” Though his hands raise, palms forward, his grin widens. “If you want to leave me alone with your stuff, by all means, old friend.”

Another image, sent off without his permission. Red pauses before continuing, “I didn’t know you played -”

“I’m not your friend, and get out of my head!”

And with a generous drink, Tom leaves.

Tord shakes his head. “Classic Blue - always so touchy.”

“Yeah,” Edd sighs. “Are you guys going to be alright? I mean, you’re paired, so you’d think you’d want to share a room, but…”

Reclining in his chair, Tord stares at the yellowed overhead. If he squints, he can make out some dead bugs in the lamp. “Not all pairs get along. It’s in our nature, as equal opposites. But Blue and I, our history is more complicated than most. You couldn’t have known that.”

They sit in silence, one with his head in his hands, one with his eye on the light. One plotting the future, one consumed by the past. Tord would like to be the former, but he knows himself too well for that. There’s a phantom burn in his throat. He doesn’t see a lamp, but a torch. He can feel Tom sitting on the front step like a blizzard just outside his window. When he pulls the cigarette from his pocket, the flame on his finger snaps, continuously lighting and re-lighting.

That day, he burns through a pack and a half. It doesn’t ease the roiling magma inside him. It rarely does.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter-Specific Content Warnings:  
> \- Depictions of slavery  
> \- Jon's off-screen suffering  
> \- Tom and Tord reunite and immediately get into a magic fist fight  
> \- Tom being an alcoholic  
> \- Tord being a chain smoker


End file.
